FROM RENAZZO TO PLYMOUTH: Italian historians visit to learn more about connection to North Plymouth

Even a century after the heyday of the Plymouth Cordage Company, the names Renazzo and Cento remain integral to the family histories of ever-growing numbers of Plymoutheans and residents of the surrounding communities.

NORTH PLYMOUTH – Even a century after the heyday of the Plymouth Cordage Company, the names Renazzo and Cento remain integral to the family histories of ever-growing numbers of Plymoutheans and residents of the surrounding communities.

Monday, locals with ties to these now seemingly far away places can reconnect with their roots at the Loring Center in North Plymouth at a meet-and-greet with a contingent of special guests visiting from Italy.

Renazzo is a tiny village in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy, according to Plymouthean Enzo Monti. Cento is the larger town next door, rather like Plymouth and Carver, Monti explained with a smile, while detailing his own family connections to this area of Italy and the tie that binds it to Plymouth.

From the 1870s through the start of World War I, a recent Italian research project has revealed, the Renazzo-Cento area experienced a mass emigration. Large portions of the locals – initially mostly young men in their 20s – left this rural area in search of better jobs. The numbers ranged from about 20 people per year in the early 1880s, increasing into the 30s through the mid-1880s, cresting at 145 in 1888 but continuing throughout the years till the outbreak of World War I. The vast majority of them came to America’s Hometown to work at the Plymouth Cordage Company.

Back in the day, when you asked people from North Plymouth where they were from, most of the Italians would answer “Renazzo,” Monti said. But once they discovered the Yankee community had no idea where that was or what it meant, they learned to tell others they were from the larger, more recognizable cities of Ferrara or Bologna – but in North Plymouth they remained “Renazzesi.”

While this exodus from Renazzo had a major impact in Italy, it also changed the face of Plymouth.

In 1895, Italians accounted for 3 percent of the population of America’s Hometown. A decade later, in 1905, that number had risen to 13 percent. And combined with the other immigrants drawn to America to work at the Cordage Company – mainly from Portugal and Germany – they quickly came to make up more than half of Plymouth’s population.

In the 2010 U.S. Census, 21 percent of those living in North Plymouth – as well as 16 percent of those residing in the rest of town and 13 percent of the residents of Kingston – identified themselves as being Italian or Italian-American, according to the authors of the book on Renazzo.

But until recently few of the local descendants of those Renazzesi had much contemporary knowledge or current connection with their family’s hometown. That is until a group of Italian researchers began studying the history of Italian emigration.

What started as a local exhibition in Italy (with help and input from the Cordage Historical Society in North Plymouth) has now grown into a book and DVD titled “Nulla Osta per il Mondo: L’Emigazione da Renazzo,” which translates to “Clearance to the World: The Emigration from Renazzo.”

Page 2 of 2 - Despite the strong ties between the communities, arranging the upcoming visit still proved to be a challenging connect-the-dots puzzle. First, different people working on the Italian research project had been communicating independently with a variety of Plymouth folks who didn’t necessarily know about each other’s involvement. And, secondly, there’s the language barrier. While many local people of Northern Italian descent still speak at least some of the language of their forefathers, that’s not necessarily the language spoken in that region today. The dialect spoken by the Renazzesi who settled in North Plymouth a century ago was so influenced by the languages of countries to the north that it was not commonly understood by those from other parts of Italy. And during World War II, Monti explained, the Fascist government outlawed regional dialects in an effort to unite the country. So, while the two groups have managed to communicate (and the researchers are traveling with a translator), the dialect spoken in the area around North Plymouth may not have ever been heard by the group visiting from Italy.

The goal, however, remains to reunite those diverging communities and help rebuild the historic bridge between Renazzo and Plymouth.

The Italian group is visiting a handful of other cities in the U.S. this week, places where other Renazzo emigrants landed over the years, leading up to a longer stay in Plymouth. They are scheduled to arrive Saturday (July 19) and will be in town until next Wednesday (July 23). With the Historical Society contingent now connected to and working with town officials, they’ve planned a busy schedule of tours and receptions, highlighted by the meet and greet set for 7 to 9 p.m. Monday (July 21) at the Loring Center, which is the original Plymouth Cordage Company library (now moved across the street from its original location), constructed to educate and entertain the diverse immigrants who came to America to work at world’s largest rope manufacturing company.

Any and all Italian-Americans with roots in Renazzo or Cento are invited and urged to attend, Monti said, to share their family stories and memories and learn more about the place their own later-day pilgrim relatives left behind to build a new life in this new land.